Electric hair cutting appliances are generally known and include trimmers, clippers and shavers, whether powered by main supplied electricity or batteries. Such devices are generally used to trim body hair, in particular facial and head hair to allow a person to have a well-groomed appearance.
Commonly, conventional devices for cutting hair comprise a main body forming an elongate housing having a front or cutting end (herein referred to as distal end) and an opposing handle end. A cutting assembly is disposed at the distal end. The cutting assembly usually comprises a stationary cutting blade with a stationary cutting edge and a moveable cutting blade with a moveable cutting edge. The moveable cutting blade moves in a reciprocal manner against the stationary cutting blade. The cutting assembly is usually fixed in a single position relative to the housing of the hair clipper, such that the orientation of the cutting assembly is determined by a user orientating the housing or main body of the hair clipping device. The stationary cutting edge and the moveable cutting edge are arranged at the tip portions of the stationary cutting blade and the moveable cutting blade, respectively. These cutting edges usually jut out of the front side of the hair clipper housing, such that the cutting edges are always visible to the user. This makes it easier for the user to see where exactly the hairs are cut, which is specifically advantageous when using the hair clipping device to form and create fine hair contours.
Since there is a great user demand for hair clipping devices that offer the possibility to be used for different hair cut lengths, many known hair clipping devices make use of separate, differently sized comb attachments. These comb attachments are generally mounted on the distal end of the hair clipping device to position the cutting assembly relative to the skin. In other words, such a comb attachment is used as a guide that moves over the skin and guides hair towards the cutting assembly. Typically, the comb attachment is mounted over the cutting assembly and spaces the cutting blades, in particular their cutting edges (the stationary cutting edge and the moveable cutting edge), apart from the surface of the skin from which the hairs extend. However, always having to replace the comb attachment by a different one when the hair cut length shall be changed might be cumbersome for the user, as this is not only time-consuming, but the user also has to store a plurality of differently sized comb attachments.
Therefore, a lot of prior art hair clipping devices use only one comb attachment that is adjustable in different positions relative to the housing of the hair clipping device. Users may thus shift the comb attachment between different positions leading to different hair cut lengths. Usually these moveable comb attachments may be adjusted between hair cut lengths of 3 mm, 5 mm, 7 mm, 9 mm, usually up to 10 mm.
An effective hair cutting performance is in most cases more difficult to guarantee when the hair clipping device is used with comb attachment as if the hair clipping device is used without comb attachment. Since such a comb attachment increases the distance of the cutting edges to the skin of the user, the hairs on the skin of the user are more difficult to reach. In other words, the comb attachment often acts as an obstacle that hinders hairs from reaching the cutting edges of the cutting assembly. Especially curled or stiff hairs therefore need to be lifted from the skin of the user in an appropriate way in order to be cut. An effective hair lifting is, however, a challenge in a lot of hair clipping devices used with comb attachments. To ensure the reachability of the hairs, the structure of the comb attachment arranged in front of the cutting edges needs to be as small as possible. This, however, limits the room for hair lifting features in the comb attachment. Also sharp features at the front section of the comb attachment, which would allow a good hair catching, are generally not acceptable as this would impact the skin-friendliness and therefore the user comfort.
Due to the above-mentioned lack of hair lifting efficiency of most of the known comb attachments, many strokes are necessary before all hairs are lifted by the comb attachment and cut by the cutting assembly. A comb attachment that would allow lifting up the hairs from their natural orientation before entering the comb and reaching to the cutting edges of the cutting assembly would therefore increase the chance that the hairs are cut to the right length and would reduce the number of strokes needed to cut all hairs.
There is thus still room for improvement.